Shadows of Pnath is a return to the Countess Alessandra Zorzi character and continues about a year on after her fantastic adventure in 'Wrath of N'kai' which kicked off the new wave of Arkham Horror stories. This time, she has to steal back a book she stole before, whilst negotiating the pitfalls of multiple opposing cults who also want the book and struggling with her new understanding that the world hides a lot more shadows and secrets than she previously knew..

The Countess Zorzi is arguably the best protaganist in the franchise with one of the most well fleshed out back stories to boot and her second adventure continues to develop her character arc to show her growth into a morally improved person alongside her new best friend and apprentice from the first book - the spunky Boston cab driver Pepper.

The Arkham Horror franchise has changed a bit since it first began and whilst it still happily delves into the more obscure Mythos writings of Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith, it has become a lot more adventurous and action packed compared to the tonally darker or more atmospheric earlier novels and novellas where it felt like the characters were genuinely testing their sanity against the unknown. Shadows of Pnath - much like The Deadly Grimoire and Lair of the Crystal Fang before it - leans heavily into the newer trend, albeit building to a spectacularly monstrous finale worthy of the mythos it borrows from. Fans of Indiana Jones and more traditional adventure pulp will be right at home here and there is no shortage of action, banterous dialogue, mystery and monsters. But, as our characters outgrow their own sceptism and horror as they do here, many of the terrors become a bit too watered down.

As a result if I'm honest, I prefer the slower builds, the character innocence and the more ever-present darker tone of Wrath of N'kai and other earlier works, but I'm still enjoying these faster paced yarns. They're great entertainment and there's an increasing level of consistency across the board game and novels as other franchise characters are starting to cross over now. For example, here we have Trish Scarborough and The Red Coterie make an appearance from the Secrets in Scarlet anthology. And Carl Sanford has another cameo. Whilst I admit to also not being as closely familiar with some of the more obscure Mythos references, I have enjoyed picking up my Lovecraft, Belknap Long and Ashton Smith anthologies to explore the works further and thanks to the author's intimate knowledge with the old stories, there are plenty of Easter eggs here to pick up.

If you want a good, old fashioned bit of pulp adventure with a big epic climax and teasers of even more weird to come, then Shadows of Pnath will scratch that itch easily, although it's perhaps recommended to read some of the older books first just to get a better context for some of the characters and their back stories. I am definitely looking forward to Zorzi's third book, which I think may have been sown in this book in readiness for something quite interesting indeed.. ( )

"The City of Lights was nice and all, but Arkham was Arkham. Her father had told her that once you were in Arkham's shadow, you couldn't escape it" (40-1). Although Shadows of Pnath is set in the Arkham Horror game milieu, none of it takes place in the Massachusetts city of Arkham, only in "Arkham's shadow" at various locations around France. This second novel written by Josh Reynolds for the Aconyte Books series continues the adventures of his elite thief character Countess Alessandra Zorzi and her apprentice Pepper Kelly. It furthermore introduces the involvement of Arkham Files investigator Trish Scarborough, a spy for the US "Black Chamber" Cipher Bureau.

While Shadows of Pnath is most overtly a sequel to Reynolds' previous book Wrath of N'kai, it also draws on threads begun by Reynolds with his contributions to the recent Arkham Horror anthology volumes The Devourer Below ("The Hounds Below") and Secrets in Scarlet ("The Red and the Black"). The initial arc of the novel is focused on the recovery of a copy of Cultes des Goules, and it bears a certain resemblance to The Club Dumas--or more precisely to its cinematic version The Ninth Gate. This plot also brings into play Zorzi's peer "acquisitionist" Chauncey Swann, an American connected with the Silver Twilight Lodge.

The titular Pnath is a reference to the Vale of Pnath in the Lovecraftian Dreamlands, which also featured in Brian Lumley's Ship of Dreams. In a piece of weird horror set in interwar France, it is not surprising to encounter a few traces of jauniste mythemes regarding the "pallid mask" and ominous glimpses of yellow. These are undeveloped and may be seeds sown for a further sequel.

Alessandra and Pepper are separated early in the course of the story, and most of it consists of short, fast-moving chapters alternating between their two viewpoints. Reynolds has succeeded in cultivating my affection for his heroine to the point that I hope game publisher Fantasy Flight will eventually issue a set of Countess Zorzi investigator cards for Arkham Horror: The Card Game.